"Except ours," Ixil said. "Why don't I go instead?"
"No," Tera said, a fraction of a second before I could get the word outmyself.
"Not a chance."
"But I could see what's there," he persisted. "There are cues I know how toread that Pax hasn't got the basic intelligence to pick up on. If I go just alittle way in, far enough to see past the initial tangle, I could brief him onwhatever I find and then let him go in. It would give him a better chance."
Tera shook her head. "I'm sorry, Ixil, but I can't let you do that. Dad wasabsolutely adamant that no one go inside until we got all the power sourcesand cables mapped out, for that very reason. It's Pix or Pax or no one at all."
Ixil lowered his eyes to the ferret, his mouth tight. "All right," he saidwith a resigned sigh. "What exactly do you want him to do?"
"We need to find a path through to the center of the sphere," I said. "Chortand Nicabar are a little fuzzy on the details of this exotic double-sphere designof theirs, but they both agree there should be a large resonance crystalsomewhere in the center, probably with a control panel either wrapped around it orsomewhere nearby. If they're right, and if we can either scope out thecontrols—or, better yet, connect it through to a control system out here—wemaybe able to activate it."
"If it's even still functional after all this time," Ixil muttered, puttingPax up on his shoulder.
"Well, something's drawing and using power in there," I reminded him. "Thoughwhere it's getting it from I haven't the foggiest idea. Warn him to watchwhere he puts his feet and nose, and to take his time. We're not in any specialhurryhere."
Ixil nodded, and for a moment he just stood there silently, communing with theoutriders. Then, taking a deep breath, he picked Pax up off his shoulder andset him down beside the opening. For a moment the ferret sniffed at the edge, hislittle nose wrinkling as if he didn't care for the smell of age in there.
Then, with what sounded almost like a reassuring squeak, he scrabbled over the edgeand disappeared.
Ixil was kneeling at the edge in an instant, plucking the light from my handand playing it inside. "Doesn't seem to be any gravity in there," he said, leaninghis face into the opening. "He's working his way along the wires the way hedoes in zero gee."
I looked at Tera. "I don't know," she said. "Though if the purpose of the gravfield out here is to make sure the center of the resonance cavity stays clear, there really wouldn't be any need for one in the smaller sphere."
Ixil grunted, and for another few minutes we stood or crouched there insilence.
Then, hunching his shoulders, Ixil straightened up again. "He's gone," hesaid, handing the light back to me. "Disappeared behind something that looked like amulticable coupler."
"He'll be fine," Tera said quietly, laying a hand soothingly on his arm. "Hedoes this sort of thing all the time, remember?"
Ixil grunted, clearly not in the mood to be soothed. "I'd better get back tothe engine room—there's still a lot of recalibration to be done, and Everettdoesn't know how to do most of the calculations on his own. You'll call me when he comes back?"
"Yes," I assured him. "Actually, Tera, you might want to go back there withhim and open the other access hole, the one you said was behind the breaker panel.
If Pax gets disoriented, it would be handy for him to have a second way out."
"Good idea," she said. "Come on, Ixil."
They climbed up the slight curve—it still made me vaguely dizzy to watchpeoplewalking around the hull in here—and disappeared through the open pressure doorinto the zero gee of the wraparound. With a sigh, I lay down on the hull againand shined my light into the opening. Pax was gone, all right, though IimaginedI could hear occasional scratching sounds as he maneuvered his way through themaze. Leaning partially over the hole, I stuck my head carefully in and playedthe light slowly around the inner surface.
I was halfway around in my sweep when I saw the gap.
I was still lying there studying it two minutes later when Tera returned.
"He's really not happy about this, is he?" she commented as she sat down cross- leggedbeside me. "He claims they're not pets, but I think he really—"
"Did Chou and his people take photos of what they could see from thisopening?"
I interrupted her.
She took a half second to switch gears. "I think so," she said. "At leastsome.
I hadn't pulled them up before because—"
"Pull them up now," I ordered, trying to keep my sudden apprehension out of myvoice. "Find me one that shows a gray trapezoid about half a meter across with about two dozen wires coming off gold connectors along its edges."
She was already at the computer, fingers playing across the keys. "What isit?" she asked tightly.
"Just find me the picture," I said tersely, getting up and stepping to herside.
Dr. Chou's people, it turned out, had taken a lot of pictures. It took Teranearly a minute to find the specific area I was looking for.
And when she did, my apprehension turned to full-blown certainty.
"Tera, you told me your dad left the ship at Potosi," I said. "How do youknow?
Did he leave a note?"
She shook her head, her neck twisted to look up at me. "No, nothing likethat," she said, a note of uncertain dread in her voice as she picked up on my ownmood. "I told you: He and his things were gone, and I couldn't find himanywhereon the ship."
"Right," I nodded. "Except that you didn't think to look inside the smallspherehere, did you?"
Her eyes widened, her throat muscles suddenly tense. "Oh, no," she breathed.
"He's not—oh, God."
"No, no, I can't see him," I hastened to assure her. "There's no—I mean—"
"No body?"
"No body," I confirmed. At least not one I could see, I carefully refrainedfrom saying. "What there is by that trapezoid is a gap in the wiring. A big gap, asif someone maneuvered his way through the thicket, creating a hole as hewent."
"It couldn't have been Pax?" she asked, her voice going even darker.
"It's man-sized," I told her gently. "Look, maybe he's just lying low inthere."
She shook her head, a short, choppy movement. "No, we've been doing work herebythe access panel off and on for the past couple of days. He'd have heard myvoice and come out." She swallowed. "If he could."
I looked back over at the hole, coming to the inevitable decision. "I'm goingin," I announced, taking a step that direction.
A step was all I got. Like a rattlesnake her hand darted out and grabbed myarm.
"No!" she snapped, holding on with a strength that surprised me. "No! If he'sdead, it means something in there killed him. We can't risk you, too."
"What, all this concern for a soul-dead smuggler?" I retorted. It wasn't anice thing to say, but at the moment I wasn't feeling particularly nice. "Maybehe's not dead in there—you ever think of that? Maybe he's injured, or unconscious, or paralyzed. Maybe he can't get to the opening, or can't even call out to you."
"If he went in while we were on Potosi, he's been in there eleven days," shesaid. Her voice sounded empty, but her grip on my arm hadn't slackened a bit.
"Any injury serious enough to prevent him from getting out on his own wouldhave killed him long before now."
"Unless he just got the injury," I shot back. I wasn't ready to give in, either.
"Maybe he got thrown around while I was dodging the ion beams off Utheno. Hecould still be alive."
She took a deep breath. "We'll wait for Pax to come out."
"We'll wait half an hour," I countered.
"One hour."
I started to protest, took another look at her face, and gave it up. "Onehour,"